Victor Emmanuel III of Italy

Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (11 November 1869-28 December 1947) was the King of Italy from 29 July 1900 to 9 May 1946, succeeding Umberto I of Italy and preceding Umberto II of Italy.

Biography
Victor Emmanuel was born on 11 November 1869 in Naples to King Umberto I of Italy and Queen Margherita of Savoy, and in 1896 he was arranged to marry Elena of Montenegro. Victor Emmanuel became king when Umberto was assassinated by an anarchist on 29 July 1900, being 31 years old at the time. Victor Emmanuel, who was only 5 feet tall, was nicknamed "Sciaboletta" ("little saber") due to his shortness. He was a part of the Triple Alliance with the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, but in 1914 he decided not to assist them when World War I began, arguing that he had a defensive alliance with them and the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand did not count as aggression. Meanwhile, he secretly made treaties to defect to the Entente Powers, and in 1915 he declared war on the Central Powers in hopes of annexing Tyrol and Slovenia to Italy. The war was supported by many, but the astonishing loss of life at the Battle of Caporetto and the recession following the war turned the opinion of the public against him, with 400 threatening letters being sent to him.

After the war, Victor Emmanuel made even more poor choices, such as denying Pietro Badoglio the ability to rout the 10,000 Blackshirts in the March on Rome with the Royal Italian Army and denying Prime Minister Luigi Facta the ability to declare martial law. Fascist leader Benito Mussolini almost considered leaving the country, but the king sent him a letter inviting him to Rome, and Mussolini formed a new fascist dictatorship. By 1926, it had become obvious that Mussolini had given all the power to himself, but the king was silent. In 1936 he became Emperor of Abyssinia after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and King of Albania in 1939 after the Italian invasion of Albania, but he had little power during World War II as Mussolini was the dictator. In September 1943, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies and ousted Mussolini from power, the King returned to power, maintaining it until his abdication in 1946. His son Umberto II of Italy succeeded him, and he died in 1947.